CaptionA displaced girl some three weeks after the earthquake that racked the Kashmir region on October 8. She leads a mule carrying her belongings. Balakot was one of the towns hardest hit by the quake. Barely a building was left standing in what had once been a popular tourist destination. The city was renowned for the beauty of its situation at the entrance to the steep, thickly forested Kaghan Valley. It was also an object of pilgrimage as it was the location of the mausoleums of two Muslim martyrs.
Organization / PublicationTCS / Contrasto for Greenpeace
CategoryPortraits
PrizeHonorable mention
Date00-07-2005
CountryBelarus
PlaceVesnova
CaptionNatasha Popova (12) and Vadim Kuleshov (8) live in the Vesnova orphanage. Natasha was born with microcephaly (her head is abnormally small); Vadim has a bone disease and is mentally retarded. It is not known for certain whether exposure to radiation can be linked to such conditions, but the Belarus government estimates a 250 percent increase in birth defects after the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, just across the border in Ukraine. Some 30 high-dependency people, ranging in age from five to 25 and all branded 'mentally unfit' live in the institution. Conditions are badly affected by the lack of funds.
Organization / PublicationMagnum Photos for Newsweek
CategoryPortraits stories
Prize1st prize
Date02-04-2005
CountryItaly
PlaceSt. Peter's Square, Rome
CaptionGazing at the window of the apartment of Pope John Paul II after a Vatican official announced the Pope's passing. Many had gathered here during his last days. After a long illness, Pope John Paul II died at the age of 84. When the Polish Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope in 1978 he became the first non-Italian to hold the post in four-and-a-half centuries. His election is seen by historians as a factor in the subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. As John Paul II, he became the most widely traveled pope in history, and was instantly recognizable around the globe.
CaptionFrederick Lennart Bentley (UK, 80) was blinded by a German grenade while on a night patrol in Normandy and had to feel his way back behind Allied lines. Across Europe, veterans joined ceremonies to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
CaptionLance Corporal Stephen Parker (20) of Athens, Texas. The Pentagon boosted the number of US troops in Iraq to 150,000 in the run up to Iraqi national elections in January, the highest level since the US-led occupation began. Most of the increase in troop count came from extended deployment of units already on the ground. Parker is a member of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines - an infantry company in the Marine Corps that was serving its third deployment in Iraq.
Organization / PublicationPhotoWire Africa for The Globe and Mail
CategoryArts and Entertainment
Prize1st prize
Date24-11-2005
CountrySouth Africa
PlaceAlexandra Township
CaptionA young dancer exercises at the barre during a ballet class. Dance mistress Penny Thloloe runs classes not only for the children's enjoyment, but also in the hope that ballet might provide a ticket out of the township for some of her students, as it did once for her. In the apartheid years Penny got the chance to study ballet at a semi-private school, won a scholarship to London and was later a founder dancer in the Ballet Theatre Afrikan. Alexandra has over 60 percent unemployment and many of its children orphaned by Aids. Penny had to go to some lengths to explain that classes were entirely free of charge and that some students might go on to earn money by dancing. Over 1,000 children came to her first audition, of which 37 were selected to begin classes in January.
CaptionFive thousand 'kong ming' lamps are released into the sky in a commemoration ceremony one year after the December 2004 tsunami. The lamps symbolized people killed in Thailand in the disaster. They are part of an ancient local tradition in which the lanterns are not only a memorial for the souls of the dead, but help give them passage to heaven. Khao Lak was the area of Thailand worst hit by the tsunami. In twelve countries around the Indian Ocean the tsunami caused well over 200,000 deaths and displaced millions of people. Memorial events reflecting the different cultures affected by the disaster were held throughout the region.
Organization / PublicationThe Philadelphia Inquirer
CategoryArts and Entertainment
Prize3rd prize
Date11-02-2005
CountryUSA
PlacePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
CaptionAn elderly woman takes a closer look at a 'Mae West Lips Sofa' and a 'Lobster Telephone' at the Salvador Dalí exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition had its first tour at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 2004 to mark the centenary of the artist's birth. It was the first major retrospective of Dalí's work since his death in 1989. Dalí's creative life as a painter, writer, object-maker, designer of ballets and exhibitions, filmmaker, theorist and publicist spanned seven decades, though he is perhaps best-known for the surrealist paintings and objects made largely in the 1920s and 1930s.
CaptionSixteen-year-old dance students go through their exercises at the Theater of Opera and Ballet School. The school is a scene of fierce competition. Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe, and many young people see ballet as a means to wealth and foreign travel. Twelve boys and twelve girls aged around eight are accepted into a ballet class every year. They stay for nine years, training a minimum of five hours a day in addition to normal lessons. Each year numbers in the class diminish, as those not considered talented enough are no longer allowed to continue.
CaptionZhao Xiaoyong, a painter from a village in Jiangxi province. He has been specializing in copying the works of Vincent van Gogh since 1996. Dafen oil-painting village is the largest painting workshop in China. Over 8,000 artists produce some five million works a year for export, copying classical masterpieces by the likes of Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso and Rafael. The first painting factory in Dafen was started by a printer from Hong Kong in 1986. Favorable transport and communication links, as well as low labor costs, led to rapid international success, and there are now around 300 similar factories in the village. The painters come from regions all over China, many of them young peasants with ambitions to earn their living from art.
Organization / PublicationMagnum Photos for Olympus
CategoryArts and Entertainment stories
Prize3rd prize
Date00-02-2005
CountryUSA
PlaceNew York City
CaptionBackstage scenes from New York Fashion Week. Twice yearly, US and international designers show off their new collections in huge air-conditioned marquees in Bryant Park. The event attracts not only top models and designers, but the invitation-only shows and parties also lure celebrities and socialites.
CaptionDestroyed palm trees line near Banda Aceh two months after the massive tsunami that swept over the area. It is estimated that the height of the wave exceeded 15m when it hit the shore. Almost all buildings, trees and vegetation around Lhoknga were washed away. Low-lying agricultural land behind the town remained under salt water for four days after the tsunami, with severe consequences for farmers. In some places nearly all of the sand on the beach was removed by the wave.
CaptionA polar bear eats a seal on an ice flow near the Monaco glacier. Polar bears feed primarily on seals, in the summer months hunting those basking on ice flows as they depend on a frozen platform from which to tackle their prey. In the summer of 2005 there was very little ice in the area north of Svalbard and the bears congregated in areas where glaciers reached open water. Polar bears are a potentially threatened species. They have been protected by severe restrictions on hunting throughout the Arctic since 1973 and the population in Svalbard has grown from a low of 1,000 to around 3,000. However, scientists are now worried about the effects of pollution and global warming on the animals' feeding patterns.
CaptionA fishing boat lies in the middle of a rice paddy some six kilometers from the coast, near Banda Aceh, weeks after the December 2004 tsunami struck the region. Fishing was an important part of local economies throughout the affected region and many had their means of livelihood destroyed. Not only were boats wrecked, but marine fish stocks were depleted. Millions of fish were swept ashore by the wave and others were unable to survive in an ocean where the ecosystem had been severely disrupted.
Organization / PublicationEvening Times / The Herald
CategoryNature stories
Prize1st prize
Date05-12-2005
CountryZambia
PlaceKasanka National Park
CaptionEvery year an estimated eight million straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) are among the seven different bat species that arrive in the abundant Kasanka National Park in October. Despite the scale of the migration little is known about where the bats come from or where they go. Satellite transmitters have been placed on four animals to trace their movements. Early data show that they travel thousands of kilometers after departing Zambia, in search of food.
CaptionA male elephant takes a bath in a lake with his mahout. In contrast to its thriving African cousin, the Asian elephant is imperiled - even in those countries where it is revered to the point of worship. As the human population spreads the elephants' natural habitat is destroyed. They are forced onto farmland where they cause damage to crops and are subsequently attacked by villagers. Elephants are also captured and put to work in the logging and tourist industries. In Thailand alone, the wild population has declined from 100,000 at the turn of last century to fewer than 1,500 today.
CaptionA riverboat stranded east of Manaus. The Amazon region experienced its worst drought in many decades. Low water levels stranded river-life and boats. Those communities who relied on river transport were isolated and had to depend on airlifts for supplies. Greenpeace blamed the drought on global warming and deforestation, claiming that forest burning had raised temperatures and prevented cloud formation. Brazilian government meteorologists said the dry weather had been caused by unusually high temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and also linked it to the year's devastating hurricanes.
